‘I’m glad you’ve found something to look happy about.’
Jens opened his eyes to find Olga standing in front of him. He liked that shy uncertain way she had about her, and had an overwhelming urge to take her hand firmly in his and walk away to freedom. Except that the field and the hangars were surrounded by a ten-metre-high wall topped with coils of vicious wire, and guards patrolled its perimeter day and night.
So instead he said, for her ears only, ‘Someone is looking for me.’
‘Who?’
‘My daughter.’
Olga’s eyes widened, soft blue eyes that were good at spotting his moods. ‘I didn’t know you even had a daughter.’
There was something in her voice, something regretful just under the surface, but he was too engrossed by the images in his head to notice it.
‘I thought she was dead,’ he said.
‘What happened?’
His ears heard the crack of a gunshot and he looked around quickly before he realised it was in his mind. ‘We were on a train.’ He recalled the temperature in the cattle wagons. So cold it transformed the blood in his veins to agonising ice and he’d watched the lips of his wife and daughter turn blue, their skin whiter than the snow outside in the wastelands of Siberia.
‘The Bolsheviks were everywhere,’ he said, ‘stopping all White Russians escaping. They hauled all the men off the train and…’ He grimaced and lit himself another cigarette to rid his mouth of the taste of death.
‘Shot them?’ Olga asked.
He nodded. ‘I was one of the lucky ones. Because I’m Danish, they threw me in a labour camp instead.’ He drew hard on his cigarette. ‘Lucky,’ he repeated bitterly. ‘It depends what you mean by that word, doesn’t it?’
‘What about your wife and daughter? What happened to them?’
‘I thought they would have been killed as well.’
‘But now you’ve heard your daughter is alive?’
‘Yes.’ His broad smile came as a surprise to both of them. ‘Her name is Lydia.’
34
Alexei slept late. His legs ached, his skin itched. A woman with sores on her face and a broom in her hand prodded him with the bristles.
‘Up! Kozel! Out now.’
Alexei rolled out of bed fully clothed, aware of his own stink, and saw that the dormitory had already emptied of last night’s occupants. The rule was that no one was permitted indoors in daylight hours. These were mercifully short in winter. He was heading down to the single bathroom on the ground floor when a rush of cold air signalled the main door had swung open and a voice behind him drew his attention.
‘Tovarishch!’
He turned. Three men in long coats with fur shapkas jammed on their heads were standing just inside, staring at him. The lethargic concierge behind the reception desk eyed them with dislike but made no comment, and Alexei experienced a flicker of alarm. He folded his arms across his chest as though bored by the interruption and remained where he was, his mouth pulled into a tight line.
‘Da?’ he responded.
‘We want you to come with us.’
Alexei’s mind raced. OGPU operatives. They had to be. That’s all he could think. The secret police. They come for you when you least expect it, especially when there are few people around to witness it. Somehow they’d traced him. Now the bastards had come to arrest him. Because of his social origins? Just because he was from an aristocratic family? Or was there something else? Immediately his thoughts went to Antonina. Had she betrayed him? A bitter taste stung the back of his tongue because he’d believed he could trust her. How the hell could he help his father when he couldn’t even help himself? He forced his shoulders to relax and stuck a smile of sorts on his face.
‘Well, tovarishchi, why on earth would I want to go with you?’ he asked easily. ‘I’m busy now. Another time maybe.’
He took a stride away down the corridor but didn’t turn his back on them. To his surprise, instead of snapping at his heels like a pack of wolves eager for the taste of flesh, they just stood there by the main door looking perplexed. Four more steps along the tiles and he pushed open the bathroom door.
‘Of course, comrade,’ a tall coat at the front of the threesome said politely. ‘When would be convenient?’
Alexei stalled, hand still on the door. Convenient? Since when did OGPU do anything at your convenience? He released the door, moved back along the corridor and studied the intruders more closely. They were no older than himself, around mid-twenties; one short and plump, the others taller and leaner with identical moustaches. All had eyes that made him nervy.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘We met last night.’ It was one of the tall figures who spoke.
‘Last night?’
‘Da. Don’t you remember me?’
Then it came to him and he cursed his starved brain for its sluggishness. The moustaches. Of course, just like the man they called pakhan, with the droop around each side of the mouth.
‘Of course I do. Tell me, how is he today?’
‘Better.’
‘I’m glad. Send him my good wishes for his recovery.’
‘He wants to see you.’
‘Now?’
‘Now.’ The man paused and added reluctantly, ‘If it is convenient. He asks whether you would come to eat bread with him.’
Alexei laughed with relief, a good strong belly laugh that made the threesome shuffle uneasily.
‘Da,’ he said. ‘Tell him yes.’
Bread and salt.
Alexei accepted the piece of black bread on the tray that greeted him as he walked into the apartment, and dipped it in the bowl of salt. In Russia bread and salt represented much more: they meant hospitality. They meant welcome. On bread and salt you could live. Beside them on the tray stood a shot glass filled to the brim with vodka. He picked it up, knocked it back in one and felt it burn the cobwebs from his stomach.
His mind kicked into gear and he looked around with interest. The apartment was an odd mixture of old and new. On the walls hung hefty oil paintings in elaborate frames, all portraits of different men. Sharp observant eyes gazed out at him from each one. Family portraits? Could be. For a moment Alexei recalled the severe paintings of his own ancestors that used to line the grand staircase in their St Petersburg villa and frighten him as a child. At least some of these looked as if they knew how to smile. The furniture, in contrast, was new and utilitarian, a plain bleached pine that looked at odds with the paintings, but everything was clean and there was no curtain dividing the large living room into separate quarters.
‘This way, pozhalusta.’
Alexei followed the plump one of the trio into a corridor and to a heavy door, with an ancient brass handle that looked as though it might have come from somewhere else. Somewhere like a church. The soft-looking knuckles knocked.
‘Da?’
‘Pakhan, I have the comrade from last night.’
‘Come in, damn you.’
They entered a room that belonged to a man with a passion. Though the curtains were half closed, a strip of sunlight lay dim and dusty in the air, exposing the contents of the room. Wings seemed to flutter, feathers flashed scarlet, eyes gleamed corn yellow. The place was full of birds. Alexei blinked but the birds didn’t move. They were all stuffed. Exquisite masters of the air trapped under glass domes and doomed to pose on mossy branches until their feathers blackened and turned to dust. With a jolt Alexei pictured his own father, Jens Friis, trapped, penned, ensnared for so many years, unable to fly.
‘Welcome, friend.’
The words were a deep rumble. They issued from a large four-poster bed that was adorned with mulberry red drapes and long white bolster pillows piled up like snowdrifts. Sunk deep in the middle of them was the pale puffy face of last night.